The 5 best 'Black Mirror' episodes, ranked (including 'U.S.S. Callister')

USA Today

11-04-2025

The 5 best 'Black Mirror' episodes, ranked (including 'U.S.S. Callister')
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'Black Mirror': Paul Giamatti, Issa Rae headline new Netflix episodes
A look at the six new episodes in Season 7 of the Netflix sci-fi anthology series "Black Mirror," featuring Paul Giamatti, Issa Rae and Rashida Jones.
Are you ready to stare into the "Black Mirror" again?
Netflix's dark and cynical sci-fi anthology series, all about the dangers of technology, returns for a seventh season (now streaming) to warn us to get the heck off our phones and turn off all those A.I. chatbots for our own safety. The new season has the series' first sequel episode, a tragedy tied up with those oh-so-familiar subscription fees and a sentimental hour featuring none other than Paul Giamatti. But do any of the new episodes rank among the series' very best?
Since 2011, "Mirror" has offered 34 usually depressing stories designed to make us take a hard look at our digital future. And while most have been thought-provoking and striking, a handful stand out far above the rest. In honor of the seventh season's debut, we ranked the five best "Mirror" episodes of all time. Don't worry, "U.S.S. Callister" and "San Junipero" are still on the list. But some of the others may surprise you.
5. 'Metalhead' (Season 4, 2017)
Most episodes of "Mirror" are extremely psychological, intimate and intellectual. "Metalhead" is all of those things, but also a rip-roaring piece of physical horror, a jump-scare bonanza that will leave you chilled even in the moments you don't have to think too much. Filmed in a stark black-and-white palette and set in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by insatiably violent robot "dogs," "Metalhead" is one of the most thrilling and tense episodes of the series. That it still manages a heart-wrenching twist in its final moments only speaks to the maturity and depth of the writing.
4. 'The Entire History of You' (Season 1, 2011)
One of the few "Mirror" episodes penned by someone other than creator Charlie Brooker (a pre-"Succession" Jesse Armstrong), "History" represents everything that "Mirror" does best, the Platonic ideal of the anthology series. In a world in which people have implants that allow themselves to rewatch their memories like episodes of a TV show, a couple (Toby Kebbell and Jodie Whittaker) is rocked by jealousy and distrust. The overarching theme of "Mirror" (technology is scary and bad) is illustrated by the eerie and intrusive memory recorders, but the sci-fi element only serves to amplify the flaws of the characters. The episode is fundamentally a story about relationships, good and ill.
3. 'San Junipero' (Season 3, 2016)
Romantic, gratifying but also deeply tragic, this retro-futuristic episode starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mackenzie Davis is Emmy-winning and beloved by fans for a reason. It is a deeply resonant love story with a technological twist: Two women meet and fall in love in a digital afterlife designed with our nostalgia-obsessed culture in mind, except one of them isn't looking to make her stay eternal. You might call it a happy ending when Mbatha-Raw's Kelly chooses the virtual heaven instead of a natural death so she can stay with Davis' Yorkie. But when the camera cuts to the stark, gray, electronic servers that contain the entirety of their world, their fate is also revealed to be deeply sad. Their afterlives and love is virtual, ephemeral and fragile, tied to the fallibility of human technology. How long could their "forever" end up lasting?
2. 'U.S.S. Callister' (Season 4, 2017)
The only "Mirror" episode ever to get a direct sequel (Season 7's new "U.S.S. Callister: Into Infinity," now streaming), "Callister" is perhaps the most culturally relevant and insightful installment of a series that is built on those qualities. A lonely and deeply cruel programmer creates sentient digital clones of all the people in his office he perceives to have wronged him, so he can torture them inside a "Star Trek"-like video game. An apt "Trek" parody, meditation on fandom and toxic masculinity and acting showcase for stars Cristin Milioti and Jesse Plemons wrapped up in one, the episode fires on all phasers, as its space-faring characters might say. This season's sequel is a fun continuation with returning stars, but it doesn't match the depth of the original.
1. 'Be Right Back' (Season 2, 2013)
Harrowing is the only word to describe this devastating episode, a cruel and heart-rending version of the "be careful what you wish for" story. Hayley Atwell stars as a woman whose boyfriend (Domhnall Gleeson) dies in a tragic accident, and amid her inescapable grief tries a service that digitally recreates her love based on his online presence. What starts out as essentially a ghost chatbot turns into a full-blown android, but Atwell's character quickly discovers that this construct can never be anything more than a facsimile. She cannot recreate the man or the love she shares, and she suffers all the more for having tried. Atwell's performance is an undeniable force, making the story all the more wrenching and affecting.